ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

A Requiem for the Third Trailer Park from the Sun: J.P. Whipple's Bible Milk is a hard traveling homeless genre crossing melange of Americana. There are songs about rambling, losing, drinking, smoking and working for nothing. The album travels from country to swamp blues to gypsy to barroom howlers reminiscent of Tom Waits. Bible Milk features a transcontinental cast of back up musicians from across America and into Europe including Noah Bernstein (tUnE YarDs), Sean McCarthy (Calico), Filthy McWhiskey (La Decollatage), Emily Williams (Ember) and others....

John Whipple busts out with the kind of story telling and musical craftsmanship that I tend to think of as long gone in American culture. The gritty realism of the lyrics combined with the truly artful and talented musicianship never cease to floor me. Bible Milk is a one of a kind album, and one NOT TO BE MISSED in a sea of horrific, canned, over produced nonsense. A musicians musician...this is the real stuff.

"Bible Milk" serves up a generous glassful of thoughtfully crafted commentaries on modern US life. Musically, this album refuses to lay down in any one bed; with styles ranging from deep south Dobro to positively Gallic accordian playing, it hits many points of the folk / country compass, but never leaves the listener feeling lost or uncomfortable. The songs themselves offer up questions and criticisms of consumerism, capitalism, and blind faith in religion and corporate America, but self-deprecation and the fact that the tongue is firmly planted in JP's cheek means that at no point does this ever feel like a 'protest' album.The mood of the album is set at the start with the haunting "To Be Free" and the title track then invites you to question whether you should blindly consume everything that is placed in front of you. Stand out tracks, for me, are "Chain Drinker", "Jesus In a Pancake" and the wonderful "One More Song". Fans of Tom Waits will love "Paycheck Blues" and "Brave New World" evoked memories for me of the late, great Chris Whitley. All of this is interspersed with amusing little vignettes such as "This Is A Cow" and the charmingly funny "Puking Rainbows", which makes listening to this album a very pleasurable experience. It will be on my MP3 player for a good while, I imagine.